mrmikeyd-blog

[mrmikeyd-blog]

Hightower jumped

Recently, there was a fire at the largest multi-story apartment building in Florence, Alabama. It was on the 4th floor. One person died and one was seriously injured. The reason given was someone was smoking a cigarette too close to an auction tank and it exploded.

It was the largest thing that I can remember happening to the building since Hightower jumped. And he DID jump, or fell but contrary to whatever Lulu was telling at the time; I did not push him. Well, not that I remember. I have to admit though, things were kind of hazy that night. Let's get this story started.

Around 1982, Lucille Lowery moved to the top floor, the 14th, of Courtview Towers. It was new, maybe 3 years old then and was considered THE cosmopolitan place to live. The ONLY high rise in Florence! At the time I was making good money managing my daddy's rental and real estate business so I moved on the 12th floor. We were the queer version of the Jeffersons(Me) "Beans don't burn in the skillet" and Green Acres(Lucille) "I just adore a penthouse view". Of course, Lucille was on the top floor and considered socially over me but I viewed the east and her the west. I got sunrise, she got sunset. I overlooked the river and Wilson Dam so it was considered that I had the better view. My mother was impressed and went out and bought me new living room furniture and I had found a king-size platform waterbed. I was all set.

The queens were impressed. Sybil started coming by immediately after I moved in and even introduced me to one of her trashiest boyfriends, Terry Balentine. He was from what would be considered state line royalty. The Balentine name came from a long line of beer joint owners on the state line, bootleggers, car thieves, bank robbers and general outlaws. Terry's branch on the family tree was not as "prestigious" Mainly, drugs, drinking, fighting, breaking and entering and crimes of passion. What "trashy" outlaws do. Sybil had met him at the park and brought him up one night to show him off. He was rough trade gorgeous. He was 19years old with coal black hair and eyes, high cheekbones and a muscular body. Not lifting weight muscles, real country boy lifting cows muscles. Butch jobs: carrying loads of roofing shingles on his back and mixing cement MUSCLES! OHHH, I swoon just thinking about him! When we met, I threw everything I could think of at him. I bragged about my job and my new car (did he like Mustangs?) but knew to be careful around Sybil. "God help the sister who comes between me and my mister" was words the bitch lived by. I had a new set of radials on my car and truly did not want them slashed!

As I recall, the short time I lived there I really like living in "The Towers". I loved being able to run up to Lucille's to visit or drink or smoke. It was always yelled out at the door "Hon, got a cup of sugar?" We started calling each other Lucy and Ethel. Of course, I was Ethel. Her saying "Every Lucy needs an Ethel" has stuck with me all my life. And in my sitcom tv show life I have followed the pattern. I have always had a running sister. EXCEPT, I am LUCY!

Miss Lowery had already had several soiree's. These were the Van Pelts, the Tippers, Christine Collier, the artsy crowd, half of Trinity Episcopal church choir. The "upper crust" where only liquor was served but other novelties were available for the most daring. No trashy tricks invited along with no park cruisers. Queens allowed but they must be debutantes of the highest caliber. I had always been invited to all her party's but mainly filled the room just as furniture would and carried on very simple meaningless conversation until it was time to go. I was strictly filler. She was giving one the night in question.

This particular party was actually kind of dull. There was a quee call LuLu in attendance who was supposedly some third cousin or something of Miss Lowery. Her family came from the Leighton money same as Lucille's so she was one of the few younger queens allowed at the affairs. I had known her for awhile. We were not close but for some reason when I said goodnight at Lucille's she came with me down one floor to my apartment. Standing in the hall was Terry Balentine and some short boy I did not know. Yes, it had been a few weeks and of course I was getting with Terry on the side. He didn't care who he tricked with as long as the money was good you spent on him. A true hustler. Not a crackhead, or druggie a real bisexual who knew his craft and expected to be paid well for his services. Well, by Florence standards anyway. We didn't really have any rich old queens then, just closeted tricks who would pay as much as $100 to suck the right dick. I was never in that league but Terry didn't care. He liked me! My apartment was full of liquor and LULU had pot and poppers. As I recall, someone came over with some coke or maybe it was quaaludes. Anyway we all proceeded to get royally drunk and fucked up.

LULU knew better than to go for Terry so I told her in the kitchen to go for his friend. He had gone down the hall to the bathroom and I went into the living room with a drink for Terry and the next thing I know I hear the bedroom door close and lock. I went to the door and said "Look, whore this ain't a video booth, leave a quarter and make it quick" or some cute saying like that. We cut on MTV and started doing coke and smoking pot and snorting poppers and drinking and drinking and drinking and evidently we had sex because some time in the middle of the night, I got up off the floor, my pants were off and Terry was laying butt naked on the sofa. My mouth felt like the lower 40 acres so I went into the kitchen to get a glass of water,

The layout in these apartments is the kitchen is on the back wall next to the hallway. There is a large opening to a small dining room then on the far wall sliding glass doors to a small balcony with a high concrete wall. You can see all the way through from the kitchen. I looked out and there was the guy (LuLu's date or HIGHTOWER) as he would be nicknamed, sitting up on the ledge. I went to the sliding door and told him to get down he would fall. I walked back into the living room and woke up Terry to tell him to get his friend off the wall and when he went into the dining room there was nobody on the wall or balcony. I walked out on the balcony and looked down. The guy was laying on top of a roof used as a drive through. It was later determined that what saved him was this roof was constructed of steel beams with some kind of foam and tar in the middle of each square the medal beams form. He had landed perfectly in the middle!

Of course, all hell broke loose. Terry split, he had warrants. I woke up LuLu and we called 911. She kept asking me if I pushed him and I said no but it did seem like he wouldn't come down and I took his arm and told him not to fall. I went to the police station and told them what my muddled brain could remember. After all, I was still drunk and high! I think he broke an ankle or something, it was not serious, and when questioned it must have somehow got out that he was at a "queer" party so he made a statement that he did not know anyone at the party and the only reason he was there was because he was looking for a place to commit suicide and the door was open. He saw the ledge. It worked! It turned out he was about to go to state prison under the 3 strike rule but due to his mental state he got locked up in the local place for mentally ill patients, Riverbend. On a side note, as soon as he got out the state wanted to try him again so this time he climbed O'Neal bridge and threatened to jump: Sybil gave him the name "Hightower"

I moved out of Courtview probably the next month. I did keep slipping around with Terry Balentine until he went to Texas with one of his brothers and killed a guy in a gas station robbery. He was sentenced to the electric chair. Sybil called me up and said "Eva we are going to be prison widows" She knew all along.

There was a running joke about LuLu that nobody as far as I know would ever tell her to her face. "LuLu's got a killer booty, it drives her tricks to suicide"

This incident took place in probably 1982 or 1983 and is for the most part forgotten. Of the main characters alive, only me and Lu's killer ass remain!

[mrmikeyd-blog]

Love the one

It is strange how I suddenly am far older than I ever thought I would be.  The oldest queen I can remember from the days of my youth lived in one of the big Victorian houses on Wood Ave up from the park and was known as Wilma Wade.  He was wrinkled and had the most magnificent head of solid white hair and would pay $20 to anyone who would let him suck their dick.  He was probably the same age as I am now.  Next year I will be 70.

I really don’t know how to be a REALLY old queen.  In this life you are ancient at 40.  I came out way before Will and Grace.  All the “gay marriage” to me was just queens rooming together and swapping hair and make up tips.  I only had crushes on straight men and that was all I wanted for sex partners.  It is and was a “solitary” life but that was how I lived it.  I had a lot of men in my life but only one I truly loved.  And he was a boy.  Statutes of limitation have long expired but my one true love was 15 when I met him.  I was 27.

I met Ron of course at the park.  Cookie Monster had a job as a caretaker for a home for delinquent youth.  He cleaned the group home in Tuscumbia at night and would sneak Ron out and they would go “riding”  He brought him to the park to show him off.  I was sitting in the living room and up Cookie pulled with his latest “chicken”.  He was gorgeous.  Ron was part Cherokee Indian and had high cheek bones and jet black hair.  When Cookie introduced me I knew then he would regret it.  Over the years, it was me who both regretted it and thank him for the greatest favor anyone has ever done for me.  I had a Mustang GT at the time and it was what I called my “butchboy” catcher.  Ron noticed it immediately and asked if he could drive it, the rest is one long twisted love story.  

It is way too much to write all about a 37 year relationship...the mud, the blood and the beer.  We lived together sometime, lived apart more often.  He was never sure whether he was straight or gay and even got married twice and father a child but in the end we were closer than ever.  And we were not gay married.  He loved being loved.  And I loved him.  Sometime around 2000 Ron started getting sick.  I just knew it was AIDS but it wasn’t and he was found to have Hepatitis C.  He had been infected for years with no symptoms and it was far along.  He developed cirrhosis  of the liver then diabetes and started his slow decline.  Although he was living with his “wife” he would come to me when he was really down.  He needed to be pampered and I loved pampering him.  Sex had left the equation a long time earlier, he was more than that to me.  He was on the list for a liver replacement and when one became available, he had it done.  He was feeling better until one night he suddenly started having convulsions and was dead before they got him to the hospital.  Of course, I could not go to the funeral but I mourned in private and took comfort in knowing we were unique in our “relationship”  It was not gay marriage, it was not a “lover” or a “boyfriend” he was the one....the only one 

[mrmikeyd-blog]

Never speak ill of the dead...Joey Manley and the Death of Donna Mae Dean

The copyright on the book jacket says 1991.  That sounds about right.  Joey Manley who was a young queen from Russellville, Alabama wrote a book titled: “The Death of Donna- Mae Dean”  When it first appeared in print, it was the talk of the “town” among the queens at Wilson Park.  I never knew exactly whether the book was a success or not, it went out of print sometime around 2000. But since it was set in Florence, or as he named our fair little metropolis in the book, Genoa, and the plot revolved around a fictional park and the queens  cruised it, this was hot copy.  It became a parlor game to match the characters in the book to actual queens living and dead at the park and in town.  Everybody had their own character and of course all claimed to be one of the two main characters.  I recently found a copy on Amazon for sale and since I had lost my copy years ago, bought it for a rereading.  30 years later the book doesn’t age well.

Let me do a little pedigree on Joey Manley....he was sort of nondescript, generic little guy...I first met him at the park.  Little Mark Hale introduced me to him one night.  Let me relate how I met Mark Hale (statute of limitations have expired I am sure).  I lived in an apartment complex sometime in the early 80′s, named Stonehurst and was unloading groceries and this cute young boy was sitting on a picnic table across the street from the apartments.  He asked if I needed help.  I did and he did and one beer led to 6 and with nightfall the arrival of Countessa and “crew” for the nightly party and the next morning I awoke with the cutest little boy in my bed.  I said I had to get dressed for work and he asked if I would take him to school.  I did, HIGH SCHOOL!  Anyway, he kept coming around and was introduced to “society” and was an instant hit at the park and all points north, south east and west.  He was about the same age as Joey Manley when he introduced me.  They were both maybe in their late teens then.  Joey was cute but strange and somehow I never really liked him and don’t really have any stories on him.  He was kind of a milk toast personality as I remember.  He went on to journalism school at Alabama I believe then moved to Atlanta and eventually to San Francisco but somewhere along the way wrote this book.  Mark and Joey both are dead now unfortunately but there are some happy memories related to Mark Hale.....Joey Manley, as I said,  was kind of a blip on the radar other than writing the book.

The book has as its main characters Keller and Thomas who are two old queens which live in a large rundown Victorian house next to the park and take in this young butch number who has ran away from home named Jamie.  It has all this conversation at the start of the book between all of them that is supposed to be campy but now in rereading just seems kind of silly and dated and they have a party where a few other characters arrive.  Before this in the book he met another young guy named Jimmy ( who even back in the day we ALL knew was patterned after Mark Hale) and Jamie falls in love. But Jimmy dumps him.  At the party he uses several names for the guest...Little Nell (Laura Nelle Cotrell), La Gioconda (the latin queen we called Soberina)  Mercedes DeVille ( an amalgamation of several queens with “family” money)  Cookie Monster (the REAL Cookie Monster was Miss Mike May) and several others but none ROTCGC sanctioned or approved. And not nearly as funny in this printed version as in real life.  Who were these people anyway?  We had our OWN fantasy world FOR REAL and the least Miss Manley could have done is retold it with a little panache!  In the book it turns out the whole story of Donna Mae was actually the character Keller’s alter ego when he tried to commit suicide and failed.  Not NEARLY as entertaining or scandalous as the real life version.  “Taint fittin, taint fittin, just taint fittin”  it was just WRONG!

It is funny in rereading this how utterly ordinary it all seems now.  Back then it was actually kind of shocking.  To have a story told so thinly veiled that was obviously about Florence and Florence queers seemed so bizarre and fabulous.  Today, it just seems quaint.  I guess I really have stayed at the party too long or can see the party through older eyes and it really wasn’t as wonderful as it seemed.  Or I just need to have a good bowel movement. :)  Anyway, the book is Death of Donna Mae Dean by Joey Manley@ St Martins Press.  A few copies are available on Amazon.  Skewed, fictionalized history BUT the main character; Keller, WAS patterned after Beau “Lucille” Lowery, founding member of the Royalty of the Tri-Cities Girls Cotillion, and I will go to my grave believing it.

[mrmikeyd-blog]

Just a fan

As Sybil got older she quit doing drag other than “special” occasions.  As we all do, time kind of caught up with his “girlish” figure.  Nonetheless, he still had that air of celebrity.  This story is an example.  We had one of our crazy Twitty City weekends (trips to Nashville)  We had stopped by a Shoneys somewhere along the way home from Nashville to Florence to eat breakfast.  It was summertime and Sybil, dressed as Gary, was only in a tank top and running shorts.  By this time he was sporting a natural black curly cut hairdo sort of long in back.  We took our seats and I noticed two women at another table kept looking at us.  Didn’t have that “look at those queers” look about them, almost looked like they were in “awe”.  We ordered and as the women left one of them came up to the table and asked Sybil “Are you Richard Simmons?” Without missing a beat, Gary said: “Could be; but not in public”  At this point the woman started gushing about “deal a meal” and asked for his autograph.  She produced pen and paper and Sybil signed it “Best wishes,  SYBIL KELLY!” and handed it back to her.  As she was walking off she asked the other woman, “Who is Sybil Kelly”  Sybil said to them “Just a fan!”  I nearly fell off my chair laughing!

[mrmikeyd-blog]

Huntsville comes to Florence

Last year I went to my first “gay pride” event in Florence.  It was at a small bar downtown which was billed as “gay friendly”  It seemed “friendly” enough, of course I put the “routine” in high gear and was telling “history” stories to a group who would listen. I don’t think most of the ones I was telling the stories to had any idea what I was talking about but it was fun just reliving everything in my mind.  Sort of like I do with this blog.

I have been to every type of gay bar I guess there is.  Leather, hustler, drag, cruise, dyke, disco and what we used to call “S&M”(stand and model).  I have lived in cities all over the south and midwest, some more than once and not for long, but before I “left town” or had “came home” to Florence, the nearest gay bar was in Huntsville.  Over the years there had been several.  The first I can remember was the Rhinestone Circus.  It was a dance bar with drag shows on weekends.  Then there was the Yumm Yumm Tree.  A Shoney’s like restaurant that was turned into a bar and had a motel behind it (convenient).  Then the Arrow, which was a dance club on a mountain.  Then somewhere in there was some postage stamp place on University Drive I can’t remember the name. Two or three of those over the years scattered all over Huntsville.  Also, there was the Viuex Carre, owned by Papaw and Boogie who had the same bar in Birmingham with the same layout.  It was open for years.  Anyway, if you wanted to dance and drink and generally “be pretty” as the wonderful Countessa would say:  You went to Huntsville on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights.  We even had a carpool!  I would drive, then Countessa, then Sybil!  If you found a trick and missed the ride back, you were on your own.  I have hitch hiked Hwy 72 many a time, as had just about everybody I knew at the time in Florence who was “gay”.  A lot of times, that was the best part of the trip!  Especially if an 18 wheeler was involved!

Sometime in the early 80′s, two queens who were a “couple”; Carl and Arvil, bought a restaurant in a beautiful building that overlooked the Tennessee River and O’Neal Bridge.  It had 3 stories.  They kept the top floor a restaurant, the second floor was a straight bar but they opened another bar in the basement floor which whether they meant to or not, became a gay bar.  At first, it was just a bunch of us sitting on a bar stool there instead of a bench at Wilson Park.  This went on for a couple of weeks.  As I recall, it was only open through the week and closed on weekends.  The straight bar on the second floor wasn’t doing too well so they decided to close is and put all there efforts into the basement bar so it was now open on Saturday nights.  Carl and Arvil are another post in themselves, were natural born money makers and legends locally but thought it would be fun to have a small gay bar in Sheffield without saying it was gay.  Of course, they had underestimated the pull word of mouth from queens had.  Wilson Park was already a draw for queens from a 100 mile radius and when word got out that there was a gay bar in Sheffield the place exploded one Saturday night.  The parking lot was FULL!  I remember Sybil, Bronzie, Jeri Black and two or three other queens had decided to put on a show.  Cute little Terry Tidwell was the dj and it was one of the best bars I can remember going to.  It was small, Carl had taken just about everything out of it so there would be room for more people but one night I remember the fire marshall showed up and still closed it down.  As a matter of fact, it was only opened a couple of months.  I remember the night it closed.  By this time word had gotten to the drag queens in Huntsville that more money was being made at “The Dungeon” (Arvil liked the butchness of the name) so several of the headliners had came over that night.  It was packed and Huntsville had literally came to Florence, or close anyway.  I remember Terry saying that to the crowd from the dj booth right before the cops burst in.  It seemed in all the rush and excitement, Arvil had forgot to “card” at the door and the Sheffield police dept had sent undercover underage customers in.  A “chicken hawks” dream who I doubt Carl or Arvil would have turned away anyhow but they were busted.  The place was closed.  But for a few brief Saturday nights, we had a gay bar in the Shoals.  And it was OURS!

[mrmikeyd-blog]

“Any of ya’ll like wrastling?”

I mentioned Crazy Alice in the last post.  I HAVE to elaborate on this genuine treasure!  I don’t even know his real name.  Never did.  Miss Lowery redid Crazy Alice to become “Alice Dementia”.  Either name, he was a genuine hoot.  I think Alice came from “across the river”.  Not sure and to tell you the truth I don’t know really where Alice lived when I knew him.  He lived close to downtown Florence, he didn’t have a vehicle but every night you would see him sitting in the living room at Wilson Park.  He was a “big girl”.  A real country queen, nelly as they come and funny as hell.  He “walked” the park.  He would trick with anybody that would pick him up.  I remember one night there were several of us sitting  in the living room and up pulled a truck, Alice got out and when he came up to the benches all of a sudden he cut a very loud fart.  Without missing a beat he said: “Big dick make booty sing song”  A classic line!

I mentioned Miss Lowery.  Beau was truly a gracious person but like most queens lived way above his means but had the knack to con people, usually with money, into letting him support his lifestyle in the manner to impress.  He had conned a professor and his wife at the local college, UNA, into letting him “house sit” in there large 2 story home adjacent to the campus.  It was a “lovely” home (please watch the movie “Nashville” and Henry Gibson’s characters line when he greeted his guest “Welcome to my lovely home”). I don’t know the agreed upon time he was to be there but I know he lived there for several months.  Rent free of course!   Beau loved to throw dinner party’s.  He gave a great party too.  He would have a mix of people. One of the party’s I attended, he had recently met some people from Nashville who supposedly came from “Bellemeade” money and were very “fufu”  It was a married couple as I remember, he had invited me, another friend who was an intellectual type queen we called “Christine” Collier and Crazy Alice.  We were sitting around the dining table, as I recall the meal had been finished and the “fufu” crowd started talking social functions in Nashville with each getting more grand than the other when all of a sudden during a momentary lull in the conversation Alice blurts out “Any of ya’ll like WRAAAAASTLING”  The emphasis on the “A” is intentional!  The entire table burst into laughter, not at Alice but because it was genuinely funny.  Alice went on without missing a beat to tell all about her favorite wrestler.  The Nashville crowd had no idea what she was talking about but were fascinated to hear her tell it!

Here is another kind of sad but odd thing about Crazy Alice.  She had gotten like a lot of queens back in the 80′s and was swallowing any pill she could find.  I heard one day that Alice had died of an overdose.  I figured it was on some kind of “downer” but found out Alice had stolen a bottle of pills from someone’s bathroom, thought she would get high, kept taking them and died of a overdose on blood pressure pills.  RIP CRAZY ALICE!  You were a hoot! 

[mrmikeyd-blog]

“You picked the wrong sissy”

Sitting in the living room at Wilson Park in Florence was always an adventure.  Sometimes it was all “laughs and giggles”, just a bunch of queens sitting there dishing the dirt and keeping an eye peeled for “Prince Charming in a pick-up truck”  Other times it got down right dangerous.

Fag bashing had always happened.  A vehicle, usually a pick up truck, would pull up and out would jump a bunch of boys any of us would have gladly entertained other more accommodating circumstances, but unfortunately at the time wanted to bash our heads in.  Sometimes they didn’t jump, but just kind of strolled up, but always either very quickly or kind of stealthily the queens who were sitting there would leave.

One night I was sitting talking with Bronzie DeMarco, Crazy Alice and Countessa and sure enough a Jeep pulled up and 4 or 5 college age guys got out and headed our way.  Now another thing I have to relate is that I had decided to add a little liquid libation to my sitting at the park routine.  I had a bottle of Evan Williams bourbon that night, had drank most of it and was about three sheets in the wind when they rushed us.  I was too drunk to run.  Countessa and Crazy Alice scattered, I sort of got up as I  remember but slumped back down.  But Bronzie was sitting there and had a pair of spike heeled pumps he had gotten from someone to wear and was taking home in a paper bag next to him.  One of the “bashers” came up and looked at me and at Bronzie and said “I’m going to beat you fag sissies ass”.  With that Bronzie grabbed her bag, threw one pump to me and took the other and planted it in his head.  LITERALLY!  Blood flew, he fell down and the other ones, I think there were only 2, sort of grabbed him and another one took a swing at me but I hit his hand with my “pump” , he cursed and they limped back to the Jeep.  As they were getting in Bronzie yelled: “You picked the wrong sissies Motherfuckers”!

[mrmikeyd-blog]

These boots AIN’T made for walking

God what haven’t I seen over the years.  The burliest biker types who were into being humiliated, young guys who would crawl up into long urinals in mens rooms to be pissed on and muscle men who loved facial hair and womens clothes.  I am about to tell you about a devotee of the later.  I first saw him years ago at a park in Sheffield, City Park West.  He was in a little Nissan 280 Z car parked at the end of the row that people used to park to cruise.  I walked by the car, he was sitting there with no shirt on but a lacy bra and panties with his dick on hard sticking up like a rocket.  He was hot.  Solid muscle, probably 20 years old, black hair.  A good trick.  Now I can overlook some peculiarities if they come with the right package.  I am from the “old school”, 2 nellies never trick with each other, and I will say I have had tricks occasionally “nelly up before my very eyes” but they were butch when I met them!  Anyway, he was a rarety, queens started talking but he was almost like a gay urban legend.  He just didn’t get out much.

Fast forward 10 years.  I was a little more jaded after living in a few SE cities and so was the butch little guy in the 280 Z.  By this time, he wasn’t even driving the Z car anymore, had a minivan (I am sure he was married by then).  He still had a nice body but had graduated from undergarments to full drag FROM THE WAIST DOWN!  He had grown a lumberjack beard, had unruly long hair, appeared kind of unkept but somewhere in this mess you could see the cute young guy who like lacy underwear.  But his taste in women’s clothes was abysmal.  By this time he had a nickname, Bertha Butch and was kind of a joke.  He no longer was a “fantom”  As a matter of fact, he had developed this fascination for being seen in his God awful outfits by queers and straight people alike in public.  

I was at Spring Park in Tuscumbia on a Sunday morning just sitting in the car. It was late morning about “getting out of church time” and up pulled “Bertha”  He got out of his van and sure enough, had on a mini skirt, a leopard print blouse, fishnet pantyhose and knee high lace up patent leather go go boots with about 6 inch spike heels.  Of course he had on no wig, no make up and that lumberjack beard.  It had been a rainy weekend.  Where he got out of his vehicle there was gravel and it was dry but he started walking on those stilt boots and headed into the wet ground where I could tell the heels had sunk in.  About that time, here comes a Lincoln Town Car with an older couple all dressed in Sunday best and pulled up in a parking space and there was Bertha Butch STUCK in the ground by his boots! They just looked at him and he frantically pulled on the boots until he ripped them out of the ground or he may have ripped his foot out of them, don’t remember, but he limped back to his vehicle!  I never saw him in those boots again!  But I did see him in other tacky drag outfits through the years.  Mainly in tennis shoes!

[mrmikeyd-blog]

Gooseneck models a garbage bag

There were several “cruise” spots in the greater “Shoals” area.  One was at Spring Park in Tuscumbia.  It had been a hot spot for years and usually had it’s share of rednecks and various butch men who would come in the bathroom to be serviced.  The men’s room was very old, built of concrete blocks, painted a dark green so that it sort of blended in with the giant oaks surrounding it and was a really good place to “trick”.  There was 3 stalls but the last two had a “glory hole” in the wall between them.  Many a dick found the target through that portal!  I was “making the rounds” late one afternoon.  I remember it was cold and had been raining.  There was a parking area in front of the bathroom. or as we called it, “tearoom”.  I pulled in and Sybil pulled up next to me.  The only other vehicle we saw was down a few spaces.  It was a beat up old truck we knew was a queen everyone called “gooseneck”. 

 I don’t know his real name.  He is still alive today.  I saw him not long ago, still cruising, and that is a comfort.  He got the name Gooseneck because when he cruised, he could turn his head so that he looked like Linda Blair in the Exorcist, staring at a potential trick.  He had been around “since the Civil War” which is to say he was a “regular”  He was mildly retarded I guess, stuttered when he talked and was well over 6′ tall and really skinny.

Sybil parked next to me and rolled down her passenger side window and we started talking, probably made the remark it was “dead” today at the park, and one of us noticed Gooseneck’s truck.  There were some “tricks” who would walk down to Spring Park, so Sybil thought Gooseneck might be in the men’s room with one.  He got out of his car, went in the bathroom and came back out yelling “Get out of your car”  I did and he said “Come in here and look”  I walked in the bathroom and heard grunting.  In the last stall, tied up with a belt and rope was Gooseneck.  He had had the hell beat out of him, was bleeding, stuck to high heavens and was NAKED!  Duck tape was over his mouth.  I walked in the stall, pulled off the duck tape, and the poor thing started stuttering how he had gotten beat up by some rednecks.  Seems he had been in the stall, “parked” waiting for Prince Charming at the gloryhole, and some guy came in and when Gooseneck looked through the hole all of a sudden the stall door flew open and another guy grabbed him and started beating the shit out of him.  They had stolen his clothes, his wallet and keys and left him tied up naked.  He asked if one of us would take him home. He was naked as a jaybird so Sybil for some reason grabbed a garbage bag from a large garbage can that was in the bathroom, tore a hole for the neck and arms and put it over his head when we got him up.  For added measure, and I didn’t even think about this at the time, Sybil took his belt the rednecks had used to tie his hands up with and wrapped it around his waist!  Project Runway on the “tearoom” red carpet!  

He was stuttering the whole time, but got to Sybil’s car, crawled in the back seat and we took him to his mother’s house in Sheffield.  And I remember when he was walking up the steps to the house, Sybil said “Well, ain’t she dressed smart”  It sounds mean now but we both laughed until there were tears coming down our faces.  Gooseneck making a fashion statement.

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“Will somebody take me to get my hair?”

I was up at the park one night sitting in the living room, I can’t remember who with, but up came Sybil in drag without her wig.  The first thing out of her mouth was “Will somebody take me to get my hair?”  I got up and went over to her and she was kind of disshoveled, but still had her dress on and makeup, just no wig.  “Where is it bitch?” I said.  She then flew into a story of “entertaining” what she said were “Lillian Law” about ten of them in a room for a bachelor party that was supposed to be a joke except the groom must have been either real horny or dumb and thought he would get some pussy.  He pulled a “Donald Trump” and made a grab except he got a handful of dick and with that Sybil knew it was time to leave.  She ran out the door.  Now all this took place at the Holiday Inn which the back parking lot had a line of cypress trees as border from the street and when Sybil ran under them a branch caught her wig!  So we get in the car, drive to the motel and sure enough, there was a blonde wig hanging in the tree.  I got out and pulled it down, Sybil shook it and on her head it went and with that she was “back in business”.  She had had “ a big night” and just wanted to go home.

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Crayola Crayon

I can’t say when I met Craig.  Seems like I have known him since I first “hit” Wilson Park.  He definitely wasn’t “queeny”.  He ran with the “cool” crowd from “across the river”.  It was just assumed he came from a family with money.  He was a tall, thin guy, definitely masculine.  What we called a “butch queen”.  The story I am about to relate has to do with what I heard was how he got his name: Crayola Crayon.

He had been a participant in a “womanless” wedding in high school.  The thing where guys, usually jocks, hold an event in tacky drag for fun and charity.  There was to be a big halloween party at this couple everyone knew, Jack and Sandy who happened to live near Sybil at the time.  The story I heard was Craig decided it would be fun to “dress up”  He had a mini skirt and sleeveless blouse with knee high boots with heels.  But the thing that was said to make him stand out was the way Sybil did the wig and make-up he was wearing.  Sybil could “sling some hair” and it was said he put one wig with 2 hair pieces that gave him 2 feet of teased up hair.  This on top of a boy that was already about 6′4″ made a definite impression.  Sybil was not about to use HER makeup on anybody (I can just hear her “some things a woman don’t share, like her men”) so he had brought his own when he arrived at Sybil’s house to be “made-up”.  He had forgotten to bring any eye shadow so Sybil found a package of crayons that he niece had left at her house and used them for eye shadow.  And the “drag” name Crayola Crayon was born.  The funny thing is Craig is still alive and well and a good friend who I see often and we laugh to this day about how he got his name.  And he is STILL Crayola!

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Clog Dance Ernestine

I met Ernie at the park one night in the summertime.  I remember it was hot as hell and I had just pulled up and parked.  He was in a little beat up Toyota with all the window rolled down and a out of country tag. Automatically throwing into cruise mode, I got out of the car and walked by.  He didn’t look too bad sitting in the car and said out the window “Hey”.  I responded and he got out and we sit down in the living room.  He sort of looked butch but was a little fat and when he spoke had a country nelly voice that I dearly loved but knocked all thoughts of any kind of sex out of the game.  He told be he was living in his car, that he was from Hamilton Al and that his daddy was a Penecostal preacher who had caught him giving a blow job to one of his friends and beat the shit out of him and kicked him out of the house.  He was still kind of beat up around his face.  I asked him when it had happened and it seems like he said it was the last night.  Anyway, he was in rough shape.  Now it would be real sappy to say I helped him out, found him a place to stay and he went on to find the man of his dreams and got a job at Dillard’s dept store selling shoes.  But of course, at that age and at that time I really didn’t think about his situation, everybody had a story and besides every queen for himself.  May be mean but truthful.  Anyway, about a week later saw Ernie again at the park and this time he had found an old queen to shack up with in Sheffield, The Dairy Fairy, but was scared that wasn’t going to last and asking for advise.  I told him he could go to the city and try to hustle (considered an honorable profession at one time) but unless he was hung like a horse better face the facts that nelly wasn’t exactly earning top dollar.  About that time The Fabulous Countessa Baroness came zooming up in her Cadillac Coupe DeVille and said:  “Friday night bitch, which will it be Huntsvegas or Twitty City?”  I probably was broke or near about so we chose Huntsville.  I had introduced Countessa to Ernie but it was a minimal recognition. Ernie was kind of pitiful though and Countessa was always a big hearted soul, he ask Ernie if he wanted to go to the Yumm Yumm Tree with us in Huntsville.  Of course, Ernie said yes.

I don’t really remember the trip I have to admit but one thing I do remember is Ernie got all fired up about doing drag.  I don’t know exactly where it came from, guess there was a show that night, but he was convinced he could be a star.  I remember Countessa was all for the idea and got Sybil to let us come over to his house and get Ernie dolled up.  There was to be an amateur night in Huntsville. Drag is NOT for everybody and the squat plump little Ernie couldn’t seem to pull off anything although Sybil had him sort of looking like a country music back up singer.  He wasn’t pretty.

Anyway, the funny part I remember is he had named himself Ernestine (or Sybil or Countessa had, who knows where names come from?)  but he insisted on some disco song for his routine and all I remember is he froze on stage, he was just standing there and Countessa said “What are you going to do Ernestine”  And Ernestine practically screams in that nelly country voice “Why, hell, even Barbara Mandrell clog dances”  and sure enough broke into a clog dance that had everyone in stitches.  He didn’t win as I remember but he was a hit.  Right after that, Ernestine moved to Huntsville, he had found a boyfriend and I didn’t see him for years.

I was sitting in the Onyx Lounge in Atlanta about 1990 and this homeless person came in.  I didn’t pay any attention, only caught him out of the corner of my eye, The Onyx was rough and had everything from homeless to hustlers  (usually the same) coming in but this guy looked down at me.   All of a sudden a country voice yelled “Miss White”  I didn’t know who it was until he came up and said Ernestine and the first thing I asked him was if he had clog danced lately.  We had a good laugh.  I was only visiting Atlanta, I lived in Birmingham then, but we did the catch up thing and he told me he had AIDS and was living in clinics.  I ask him if  his family would help and he said his folks wouldn’t even allow him to come back home and especially since he had AIDS.  I later heard when he died, his Penecostal preacher daddy wouldn’t even pay to have his body shipped back to Alabama.  Sad.

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A cattle rustling queen

I wish I could recall exactly how I met Beau Lowery.  It was around the time I had graduated from college at UNA and fallen into my daddy’s real estate business.  I was cruising Wilson Park then but don’t know for sure if it was the park or perhaps somewhere else.  Anyway, the day I met Beau opened a whole new world up to me.  And it was a fun one!  It was through Beau that I met another of the funniest persons on the planet: LaMonte Cottrell.  Let me do a little background here because I have just mentioned the founders of the Royalty of the Tri Cities Girls Cottillion (genoflex required).  One night Beau and I went to a basement apartment on Wood Ave and this little guy came to the door.  He was (5X5) as they say, 5 feet tall and 5 feet wide.  He was dressed in a mumu.  The apt was all candles and silk scarves it seemed like to me and was utterly chic and mysterious.  We started drinking beer and he kept me in stitches.  But I digress, “Laura Nelle” is another topic for another post, well could be a book unto “her” self!  Let me throw in one little tidbit about the ROTCGC so you will know where these “names” came from.  LaMonte wanted to be in a fraternity.  He was rushed by Kappa Sigma at UNA which at the time was just forming and was rushing anyone with a pulse.  He was sure he was going to get tapped but when he didn’t (and yes it was because he was queer) he in jest made up his own “sorority” with Beau while sitting drinking beer one day on the veranda of Beau’s parents home in the “Village”  (Miss Lowery would like the wording of that last sentence)  Part sorority, part society.  Enough background, let me get to the cows.  I started to drop by LaMontes basement apt and one afternoon Beau came in all upset that he had a visit from the Lauderdale Country sheriffs dept.  It seems that in a drunken night of partying with some UNA football players, there had been a beer run to the state line to restock and during the drive back they had came upon a cow in the road that had gotten out of a fence.  The quarterback (really don’t know what position he played but once again: Miss Lowery would approve) got all excited and wanted Beau to go by someone’s house he knew to get a shotgun, they did and he shot the cow.  Then hauled the carcass into the back of Beau’s old Eldorado Cadillac and down the road they went.  They actually made it to Beau’s little garage apt but somewhere along the way someone saw them and got Miss Lowery’s tag number and there was actually a warrant sworn out against him for cattle rustling!  “Had a little trouble in my hometown and had to leave; right away”  And with that sentence opens the great march to Georgia, the Atlanta adventure!

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Christmas Concert

Since it is the end of the holiday season I can think of no better time to tell the first of many “Sybil” stories I will relate on this blog.  Who was “Sybil”??  Damn, where do you start? Gary grew up in East Florence.  He was raised by his grandmother.  What we called “Weeden Heights trash”.  I would meet him after I had graduated from high school and was “out” in my mind.  Gary would become someone I admired and definitely a “running buddy”  He was a shrewd, street smart and fun person who became my best friend and as the stories are told will reveal more of his personality that I knew.  “Sybil was a mess”  And could make a dog laugh.  Other than my mother, he is the one person I wish I could spend just one hour more with before I die.

Each year in addition to the parade there was a Christmas concert.  It must have been my sophomore year but for some reason this particular year there was to be one concert with both bands performing onstage at Coffee High School auditorium.  The Coffee band had the right side of the stage, Bradshaw was on the left.

I played the cornet so I was sort of in the front of the stage.  Both bands were ready to go and the curtain was pulled up but then the members of the Coffee band started laughing and snickering as we started to play.  I looked out to the audience and there in the front row was a woman dressed in a full length blue dress with a white fur being escorted up the aisle by the principle of Coffee High School, Joe Grant.  After the concert, it was the gossip dejure backstage that it was a “queer” who had been sent home from school the previous Friday for coming to school dressed as a girl (the word drag wasn’t invented I guess or used anyway) and he had shown up at the concert.  He had waited until the curtain was rising and walked to the front row, had a seat, and was immediately asked to leave by the principle. One thing I did notice, as “Sybil” was being walked up the aisle of the auditorium, “she” hooked her arm in Joe Grants as any “lady” would do who was being escorted!!!!  That was my introduction to the wild world of “Sybil”.  Gary always said going to that concert was the best thing that ever happened to him.  Monday morning, Gary was back at school, this time in a “hippie dress” (as he put it when he told the story) and was called immediately to the principles office.  Frantic calls had been made and since the Florence school board had never had a boy who wanted to wear girls clothes to school before as a student, didn’t know what to do with him, and asked him if he wanted to go to beauty school.  He jumped at the chance and got a complete scholarship complements of the good people of Florence to “Ray’s College of Beauty Knowledge”  And “Sybil” never missed a beat!  A “legend” was born!

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Jingle Bells and balls all the way

Another of the main characters to ever grace the sidewalks and benches of Wilson Park was a 6′5″ black queen named Terry.  His drag name was Bronzie DeMarco.  What he did in the Christmas parade became another of the great stories to come out of Florence.

  There were 2 schools at the time in Florence, Coffee and Bradshaw.  At Christmas time there was the annual Christmas Parade.  Being in the band,  (of course, all male band members were either “beaters or blowers”) I marched with Bradshaw.  Coffee was the older school and always marched first.  I remember one year where while we were marching there was some kind of delay in the front of the Coffee line but at the time really didn’t know what had happened.  Of course in high school I was deep in the closet and actually it seems in those days “gay” happenings weren’t talked about.  It was a few years later when this story was relayed to me that I recalled the incident.

“Terry” had wanted to be a majorette in the Coffee High School band. He could twirl a baton with the best of them.  But he had quit school and at the age of 16 had started hitchhiking to B’ham to appear in drag shows.  He was already “Bronzie DeMarco”  When it was time for the annual Christmas Parade, he was home in Florence and after getting especially high on pot decided it would be funny to somehow crash the majorette line in the parade.  He had a one piece black bathing suit that he altered to look just like a Coffee majorette uniform.  He did the full drag face with wig and wore a full length fake fur coat.  He kept the majorette baton up the sleeve and walked to the corner of Court Street and Tuscaloosa and stood on the sidewalk with the crowd.  When he saw the Coffee band coming down the street, he waited to the right moment and took off his coat, jumped in line and actually marched about a block twirling until the Florence cops noticed that was a TALL black majorette in the line and pulled him out.  I don’t know if anything was done to him or not but he did get to march at least one block.  I just wish at the time I had been more aware and seen it myself.  But that is the story of Bronzie and the Christmas balls as has been circulating for years.  True???  As I recall, I asked Bronzie one time and she just shook her head yes but didn’t elaborate.  Makes a good story anyway!

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Write it all down

I have been saying for years that it is a shame and disgrace that all the stuff that happened, and the story’s of different events and life as a queer in Florence Alabama in the early 70′s and beyond should be written down.  I decided to do it.  This will be a series of stories.  A little gossip, a little embellishment and a lot of bullshit.  After all, most of these stories are related in third person mode and in the “tell a phone, tell a queen” tradition there was a whole lot of “coloring” involved.  But the bottom line is the heart of the story was real.  This shit actually happened!

I will do a little background on how I came to meet the people I am telling stories about as I relate the story.  Most of it centered around “the park”  I guess every small to medium size “town” has a place like “the park”  In Florence it was Wilson Park.  A city park with a fountain that set in the middle sort of of town next to the post office.  By day, it was sometimes a gathering place for the professionals who worked downtown to eat lunch or talk real quick but come about 1 hour past dark and it was a cruise spot where vehicles went in a circle around the block and sometimes further “patterns”  The bravest of the brave would actually park their vehicle and get out to sit in the “living room”  this was a small area with 4 benches which was directly across the street from the post office.  A lot of gossip and these stories actually happened in the “living room”. 

 One that I am about to tell is related to a “fixture” in the “living room” called the DONNA MAE DUNN MEMORIAL BENCH.  So let’s start with DONNA MAE.   I don’t know how he got the name, probably from the “committee”, but that is another story.  His real name was Larry Dunn.  He seemed like he was older than me, probably in his 30′s, but who knows, at that time I was 21ish when I first saw him.  He was tall and skinny.  He had an exaggerated “swish” in his walk.  The first time I met him as I recall was one night I was sitting alone for some reason on the other side of the park next to the fountain.  Here comes this tall skinny queen in a full length fake fur coat and sits down next to me on another bench.  I was definitely not interested sexually but he started rambling in one of the most high pitched voices about the cops were out to get everybody in the park and right then a cop car made a “round” he started pointing and saying: “SEE, SEE” and since this was a nelly queen who I was kind of repulsed by and might get the cops after us (it was real easy in those days)  I got up and left.  

Donna Mae drove an old beat up 1968 Oldsmobile Toronado.  It was red with a black vinyl roof.  Donna Mae has been to every kind of mental hospital there was.  He was a walking Rexall pharmacy and also made a little “spare change” selling Quaaludes.  I remember buying a 714 from him one time for $5.00.  Considered outlandish!  Anyway, due to being fucked up most of the time his car was smashed to bits on all sides.  The running joke in the living room whenever we saw that beat up Oldmobile coming was “Watch out curb, watch out bushes, here comes Donna Mae”  He usually was so high he drove alright in a straight like but always “cut too soon” when rounding a block or curve!  So there was usually some tire marks on grass and another dent on the fender whenever Donna Mae made the block!

And that coat!!!  It was full length, fake some kind of fur you used to see a lot of black pimps wearing the same thing.  And he wore it any weather.  He would be pouring sweat in 100 degrees but have the “mink” on.  He told everyone it was real ranch mink and worth $40,000 !!

This is most fascinating part of the tale of Donna Mae to me.  How he died.  I heard it almost a week after the news spread that Donna Mae or LARRY DUNN as it was dutifully noted in the obituary of the local paper THE TRI-CITIES DAILY (as it was known then) that his death was from an “accident” (At this point I always picture the scene from The Rocky Horror Picture show where the “creature” is born and Rocky says he had make an “accident” and snaps the rubber gloves)  He had drown in the bathtub.  Now for the REST OF THE STORY.  He was locked in the bathroom.  Had been there for a day and a half.  He lived with his parents and they didn’t think anything about him being in the bathroom  all day the FIRST day but on the second thought they would at least “check on him”  When he didn’t answer the door they called the police and when opened it revealed him drowned in the bathtub.  But this is where the legend of Donna Mae is born.  When they examined the body, he was in a black one piece bathing suit with fishnet hose, a copper pipe was stuffed up his ass like a dildo and it had two wires hooked to it running to a car battery.  He had hooked himself up and jumped in the tub!  The story got a little credibility when it was later revealed by someone who actually worked in the police records room that on the report it is all listed and cause of death was determined a “sexual suicide”  Maybe true, maybe not, but the legend grew.  There was even a young queen, Joey Manley, who wrote a book about gay Florence called “The Death of Donna Mae Dean” based on the story!  And so, LaMonte Cotrell, one of the founders of The Royalty of the Tri Cities Girls Cotillion, named the bench that was in the “living room” at Wilson Park that faced the post office on the far corner next to the small tree Donna Mae had destroyed with the beat up Toronado the DONNA MAE DUNN MEMORIAL BENCH.  And as of this writing, it is still there today with DMD carved on the seat!